Court cuts jail time for Vic sex offender

A man who believes he is a cat spirit has had his jail time for sexually abusing an eight-year-old girl cut by the Victorian Court of Appeal.

William Hladik, 32, has a "kind of moral impairment" as a result of an autism spectrum disorder and a lack of social insight and reasoning, according to a forensic psychologist's report.

Hladik believes he is a cat spirit and has an animal guide in the form of a black jaguar that flies on a space ship, the report tendered in Hladik's County Court plea hearing said.

Last year he pleaded guilty in the Victorian County Court to one count of persistent sexual abuse of a child under 16, one charge of producing child pornography and one charge of possessing child pornography.

Judge Marilyn Harbison, who jailed Hladik for six years and nine months with a non-parole period of four years and six months, heard he was vulnerable and easily manipulated.

The parents of the girl had a "sexually licentious lifestyle", and the "atmosphere of some sexual debauchery" in which the girl was raised left her vulnerable to sexual exploitation, the court of appeal said in its ruling.

Hladik met the girl's parents as part of a group of people who imagine themselves as animal spirits, and he became accustomed to spending the night in their spare room.

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Hladik's creation of the jaguar was consistent with a childlike escape into fantasy as a result of his condition, according to Aaron Cunningham, who wrote Hladik's psychological report.

When Dr Cunningham saw Hladik in custody, the 32-year-old told him the black jaguar visited him in prison.

In a joint Court of Appeal ruling, Justices Robert Redlich, Mark Weinberg and David Ashley found Judge Harbison failed to give sufficient weight to the extent to which Hladik's mental disorder reduced his moral culpability.

"Plainly, the appellant suffers from a serious disorder, which contributed significantly to his offending," their ruling said.

They said his impairment will cause the burden of imprisonment to fall more heavily upon him.

Hladik's sentence was cut to a maximum term of five years, with a minimum of three to serve.